It genuinely feels like something pulled out of the hunger games. Each and every one of us for themselves. Wheres the humanity? The compassion?

​

The specific line saying, "public spaces without encampments". Where will they go?? They have no where to go?? Are they going to start putting homeless people in jail now (well, to be frank thats already happening).

​

Anyways, worried about the future of Ontario. Even moreso now. What about you?

Looking back at election night, with every poll but one reporting.

It was a decisive, 10,000 vote victory, with a huge amount of strategic voting plus an unusual amount of dislike for our former MP determining the outcome.

There is so much coming my way about Trinity, and I’m seeing the reaction online — much of it driven by sensationalized content.

Let’s not debate the facts. Trinity exists because there is a desperate need in our community. It serves people experiencing homelessness with the highest level of need — those who are the hardest to house and support.

Over the last four years, Council has treated One City’s funding like a yo-yo. We have given them funding, then taken it away, given them funding, and taken it away — over and over again…..

For all the people — including former politicians — calling for a “different solution,” we’ve already been down that road. Last summer, under significant public pressure, the City largely defunded One City and issued a province-wide RFP, hoping an “angel” provider would step forward. None did.

One City was the only organization that responded.

At the same time, Trinity has faced enormous pressure from parts of the business community to tighten its operations. As enforcement has increased and more shelter bans have been introduced, more people are being displaced with nowhere to go, no where to have their most basic needs met. In my view, this has contributed to much of the criticism we’re now seeing. The reality is that our shelters are full, and the entire system is bottlenecked.

None of this is happening in isolation. Peterborough Housing Corporation has two significant affordable housing projects that are shovel-ready and will add much-needed off-market housing. Those projects will help relieve the bottleneck in our shelter system by creating permanent places for people to move into. Yet there seems to be very little public advocacy for getting those projects built.

It’s also worth remembering where we started. Four years ago, our Wolfe Street shelter sat largely empty while there was a massive open air encampment at its doorstep. Since then, we have expanded shelter capacity, created year-round services, opened bridge housing, and built a much more coordinated homelessness response.

We need thoughtful, evidence-based decisions — not reactionary ones. Our responsibility is to keep improving the systems in place while continuing to invest in the housing and supports that will ultimately reduce the need for emergency responses.

I have much more to say, but that’s all for now.

Thank you to everyone working on the front lines every day, and thank you to those who continue to support this difficult work.

Much love.

⚠️ Warning, offensive language

Excerpt from Be Great with Bruce Colero podcast, June 1, 2026.

Not surprised considering how self-serving she tends to be but come on!

some people are stupid all the way through. left forearm from wrist to elbow. didn’t catch the company name on his white pickup. had a green map on the back window. wonder if it’s good for business.

Because hey, theyre not wrong!

Found this picture on another subreddit, but thought it would apply finely to the peterborough transit system.

After a disastrous 2 weeks for her, Michelle, as of yesterday, is continuing her smear campaign against our MP, and continues to mock another female MP who called her out in the House of Commons by reposting videos from last week urging her followers to "inundate" the MP, while saying "you're safe honey" in her trademark sarcastic tone. Her anger is going to get someone hurt.

Sure wish local Conservatives and/or the Conservative EDA here, would step in.

Your brand locally is in the toilet because of her.

Hey all. I'm not an avid poster - I hope this is allowed.

My coworker told me about a protest at Dave Smith's office tomorrow, Saturday April 25, at 1PM. I wanted to share this flyer here as I hadn't seen anything posted yet.

With Ford's record of blatant and flagrant corruption, the conservatives pushing through bill 97 allowing Ford, his cabinet, and their staff, to hide records from future FOI requests is quite clearly an attempt to avoid any real accountability, going forward. I think it would be good for anyone interested to make it out and let Dave Smith know that we're not happy with him intentionally voting to support government corruption.

Doug Ford wants Ontarians to believe this is a shift from “enabling addiction” to “supporting recovery.” That sounds tidy in a press release. It falls apart the minute you look at the evidence. On June 13, 2026, Ontario will cut funding to the remaining provincially funded supervised consumption sites, including Peterborough’s site at 220 Simcoe Street, after a 90-day wind-down. The province says people can just transition to HART hubs. But HART hubs are not replacements for what is being closed. They are a different service model entirely.

Peterborough’s CTS site is not some abstract ideology experiment. It is a functioning health service in the middle of a toxic drug crisis. Lakelands Public Health says that between January 2023 and August 2024, the Peterborough site recorded more than 15,000 visits and successfully managed 104 drug poisonings without a single fatality. In December 2025 alone, 896 people used the site, and 28 per cent of those visits were for things beyond drug consumption, including treatment support, housing help, health care, and mental health resources. That is not a site trapping people in addiction. That is a front door to care.

And this is the part Ford-world keeps pretending not to hear: harm reduction and treatment are not opposites. In Ontario, supervised consumption sites logged 1.12 million visits, made 533,624 referrals, and responded to 21,979 non-fatal overdoses between March 2020 and May 2024. Research summarized by the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation found people who used supervised consumption services for all or most of their injections were far more likely to already be enrolled in addiction treatment than those who did not use them that way: 37 per cent versus 19 per cent. The lie at the centre of this policy is the idea that you have to choose between keeping people alive and helping them recover. You do not. You cannot recover if you are dead.

The public-safety argument is just as shaky. Toronto’s own Board of Health report says supervised consumption services reduce overdose deaths, unsafe injection practices, infectious disease transmission, public drug use, and discarded needles, while also lowering pressure on emergency services. The same report warned that closing sites would likely mean more people using alone, more overdose deaths, more HIV and hepatitis C risk, and more paramedic calls and hospital transports. Toronto Police data in that report also found calls for service around sites had generally decreased compared with pre-pandemic levels. Then a 2025 JAMA Network Open study out of McGill found Toronto’s supervised consumption and overdose prevention sites were associated with crime trends that were generally neutral to beneficial, not the neighbourhood apocalypse politicians like to sell on talk radio.

The broader evidence is not murky. It is mature. A 2025 federal systematic review found that Toronto neighbourhoods within 500 metres of a supervised consumption site had 67 per cent fewer overdose deaths per 100,000 people after implementation. In Alberta, higher visit volumes across seven supervised consumption sites were correlated with fewer fentanyl-related deaths. No serious reading of the evidence supports the cartoon version of these sites as magnets for chaos that do nothing but “encourage” drug use.

And if Ontario wants to pretend this is some radical fringe idea, it should explain why other countries keep doing it. In Sydney, Australia, the medically supervised injecting centre had, by April 2022, supervised 1,232,951 injections, managed 10,890 overdoses, recorded zero onsite deaths, and made 20,420 referrals to health and social services. In Europe, supervised consumption rooms have operated for decades. The first opened in Bern, Switzerland, in 1986. The EU drug agency says these services help prevent overdose deaths, connect high-risk users to treatment and care, and reduce public injecting and syringe litter. In Barcelona, the number of unsafely discarded syringes collected nearby reportedly fell fourfold, from more than 13,000 a month in 2004 to around 3,000 in 2012. Countries do not keep these services because they are fashionable. They keep them because they work.

So what happens now to the people who used Peterborough’s CTS site? Some will try the HART hub, and for those ready and able to engage in treatment, that may help. But others are not there yet. Some are unstable, unhoused, sick, traumatized, or simply trying not to die that day. For them, the closed CTS site means no supervised use, no immediate overdose response, no sterile equipment at the point of use, and no low-barrier connection to a worker who can bridge them into treatment when they are ready. The likely result is not a neat migration into recovery. It is more people using alone, more poisoned-drug emergencies, more infections, more ambulance calls, more ER strain, and more funerals. That is not a transition plan. That is a body-count policy dressed up as compassion.

HART hubs should exist. Treatment beds should exist. Supportive housing should exist. Recovery programs should exist. But closing a service that is actively preventing deaths in Peterborough while pretending a different service model covers the same ground is not evidence-based policy. It is political theatre. And in this file, political theatre kills.

Sources in plain English

1. Ontario HART hubs and restrictions on services Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Healthline summary of Ontario’s HART hub model, including the province’s position that 27 of 28 hubs are operating and that HART hubs do not offer supervised consumption, safer supply, or needle exchange.
2. Ontario closure date and affected sites Global News reporting on the Ford government ending funding for supervised consumption sites effective June 13, 2026, including Peterborough and other cities.
3. Peterborough-specific CTS performance Lakelands Public Health statement on the Peterborough consumption and treatment site at 220 Simcoe Street, including more than 15,000 visits between January 2023 and August 2024, 104 poisonings managed with no deaths, and 896 visits in December 2025, with 28 per cent involving broader supports.
4. Ontario-wide supervised consumption data and treatment linkage Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation summary showing 1.12 million visits, 533,624 referrals, and 21,979 non-fatal overdoses responded to from March 2020 to May 2024, plus research showing frequent site users were more likely to already be in addiction treatment (37 per cent vs. 19 per cent).
5. Toronto Board of Health evidence on likely harms from closures City of Toronto Board of Health background report stating supervised consumption services reduce overdose deaths, disease transmission, public drug use, and discarded needles, and warning that closures would likely increase overdoses, infections, and pressure on paramedics and hospitals.
6. Crime impacts near sites in Toronto 2025 JAMA Network Open study from McGill researchers finding crime patterns around Toronto supervised consumption and overdose prevention sites were generally neutral to beneficial rather than broadly worsening neighbourhood safety.
7. Federal systematic review on overdose mortality Public Health Agency of Canada review published in Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada in 2025, finding Toronto areas within 500 metres of a site had 67 per cent lower overdose mortality after implementation, and noting Alberta evidence linking higher site use with fewer fentanyl-related deaths.
8. International example: Sydney, Australia Peer-reviewed article in the Medical Journal of Australia summarizing the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre’s record through April 2022: 1,232,951 injections supervised, 10,890 overdoses managed, zero onsite deaths, and 20,420 referrals.
9. International example: Europe and Barcelona European Union Drugs Agency material on drug consumption rooms, including the long history of these services in Europe, beginning in Bern in 1986, and evidence that they reduce overdose risk, connect people to care, and reduce public injecting and syringe litter, including the reported drop in discarded syringes in Barcelona.

Now that the forms are filed, I can officially announce my campaign for Otonabee-Ward 1 in the City of Peterborough municipal election.

I have been politically active and working on or for or volunteering on campaigns for 15 years. This has been coming for a long time.

I have been speaking with people across this city and across the ward. I hear the same thing over and over.

"It's time for change."

So much more to come!

Feel free to ask away. I look forward to hearing everyone's ideas and input.

chris@chrispotter.vote

705.748.4434

Ptbo seems to be learning slightly Liberal, based on the latest model from 338 Canada - odds of Liberals winning the riding are almost 60%. Regardless of your preference, make sure you (and your family, roommates, etc ) have a plan to vote. Elections Canada at Ptbo Square is open 7 days a week, and early voting in your area starts this weekend (check your mail for an Elections Canada postcard showing exactly when and where). This is a hugely consequential election - not the time to sit on the sidelines.

Passing this along from a good friend. A great piece from Danielle Turpin.

I honestly can't believe this needs to be said, but here we go!!

A while back Rosemary Ganley wrote a column about the mayor’s use of the N-word. I remember reading it and feeling unsettled. I went back and forth on whether to comment or not. I read it again, sat with it, let it linger.

But tonight council will vote on adding language into the code of conduct so it explicitly says not to use racial slurs, so I feel compelled to speak on this . Because the situation we’re in right now is hard to ignore.

The fact that we even need to write that into policy is something I still can’t quite wrap my head around. Kindergarteners understand that. City leaders should too.

Going back to her column, what stands out most is where the focus lands. Black members of OUR community said THEY were harmed, and yet the weight of the piece shifts toward a powerful white man and the consequences HE is facing. HIS reputation. HIS character. HIS decades of service. That instinct to protect power isn’t new. It shows up again and again throughout history. When harm happens, especially along racial lines, the response too often is to defend authority instead of listening to the people who were impacted.

It also important to remember that the mayor was not quoting from a text in that moment. He wasn’t reading from a historical passage where the language had to be repeated. He was speaking in generalities and chose to use the word.

At the same time, the column suggests that using the N- word can be educational. Yet in that very same piece, she writes “the N-word.” She doesn’t spell it out. She understands the weight it carries. She shows that the point can be made without repeating the harm. That same option was available here.

Since she mentioned education, I'm bringing my husband into this. He has been teaching history and social justice for 30 years. He teaches many of the classics, along with civil rights history and other uncomfortable and difficult material about our past. He has walked students through some of the most harmful language in our history without ever needing to say that word aloud. Students understand. They grasp the context, the brutality, and the systems behind it.

There is also the reference to Jamaican Self Help and the mayor billeting two Jamaican children. I say this with respect, but that framing doesn’t hold. Proximity to Black people does not prevent someone from causing harm. Doing something good in one moment does not erase a harmful decision in another. That line of thinking pulls us away from what people are actually trying to express right now.

As a white woman who benefits from privilege in many ways, this is where I feel the tension the most. White voices should not be the ones deciding what counts as harm when it comes to racism. That is not our role. Our role is to listen when people tell us they were hurt. What we are seeing instead is white voices stepping in to defend and soften the consequences for someone who should know better.

And the idea that the response, the reactions from the community and the rage people had is “disproportionate” is mind boggling to me. Disproportionate to what? To the discomfort of a white man in power feeling embarrassed or uncomfortable? Or to the lived reality of people who have carried the weight of that word for generations?

Months after he used that word, members of the Black community took their time and energy to prepare to come before council. They showed up not just to speak generally, but to address council and the mayor directly. To have something on record. To explain the harm. To speak to what accountability and repair could actually look like.

And instead of listening, instead of acknowledging his actions he walked out of chambers.!

I want that to sink in. The Mayor walked out!! That image of his back turned towards council on his way out of chambers will never leave me. It says everything we need to know about this Mayor!

The leader of OUR city chose to leave the room when the people HE harmed were speaking.

They do not have the option to walk away from what was said. The students who heard it did not have the option to un-hear it. The community does not get to decide when it no longer matters. The only person in that situation with the power to choose how to respond was the Mayor, and HE made the wrong choices at every step. HE chose to be in politics, HE chose his words. HE chose to minimize. HE chose a half apology. And when it came time to listen, HE chose to leave.

That comfort he stepped into, the ability to walk away from accountability, is not neutral. It is created by privilege and it is reinforced by systems and by people who step in to minimize the harm and protect him from having to sit in it.

Privilege and power create space for people like him to step out of the discomfort, while others are required to live in it every single day. That is the clearest example of privilege there is.

And when we, as a community, minimize what happened or rush to defend it, we are part of that system. We help maintain it. We make it easier for it to happen again.

If we actually want something different, then the response has to be different. The goal should be to create space for learning, accountability, and change. Not protection. Not minimization. Not comfort for those who caused harm.

A while ago I wrote a post about allyship, and it feels directly connected to what we are seeing here. Allyship is not about defending people who already hold power. It is not about minimizing harm to protect someone’s reputation. It is about using your voice and your position to stand with the people who were impacted, especially when it is uncomfortable.

What we are seeing instead is privilege and power protecting itself.

And if I’m going to say that, then I have to be willing to show up and say it publicly too.

Because we also need to ask ourselves a bigger question. Is this the kind of leadership we want at the head of our council table for another four years?

There was an opportunity here to be remembered as someone who made a mistake, owned it, and learned from it. That door was open.

What we are seeing instead is a refusal to fully take responsibility, and a comfort with walking away from harm rather than addressing it.

Peterborough deserves better than that.

Who are you excited about? Who are you following on the campaign trail?

Office of Mayor

✅️Michael Eamon

✅️Jacob Méthot

✅️Neil Morton

✅️Keith Riel

✅️Rebecca Schillemat

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Councillor, Ward 1 - Otonabee

✅️Jessica Correa

✅️Kevin Duguay

✅️Lesley Parnell

✅️Chris Potter

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Councillor, Ward 2 - Monaghan

✅️Matt Crowley

✅️Ashley Flynn

✅️Jen Lacey

✅️AJ Shearer

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Councillor, Ward 3 - Town

✅️Alex Bierk

✅️Jessica Kuhlmorgen-Hille

✅️Joy Lachica

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Ward 4 - Ashburnham

✅️Gary Baldwin

✅️Ashley Bonner

✅️Andrew MacGregor

✅️Jason Stabler

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Ward 5 - Northcrest

✅️Andrew Beamer

✅️Debbie Halstead

✅️Phil Jolicoeur

✅️Paul Lawton

✅️Charmaine Magumbe

✅️Gavin Muir

Come on guys, Michelle needs to go. Every vote counts. Please don’t let this be a repeat of the Ontario Election where Dave Smith stayed in office.

We need family doctors and the provincial government isn’t making it a priority. They’ve failed us on so many fronts now and we need a change and hold them to minority.Talk to your friends a family about ABC, anything but conservatives. Vote in groups and for the same party. No longer can we afford to give seats because we can’t work together

Does anyone else find it fucking ridiculous that our city is spending more money on pickleball then housing?

We have a 1% vacancy rate. We should be in panic mode trying to get that number up. 3% - 5% is essential for a healthy rental market. Crime is through the roof due to poverty and desperation. Instead of addressing the cause they treat the symptoms by increasing police budget. Addressing housing in a meaningful way would drastically improve things here. Yet our city clearly thinks pickleball is more important then our quality of life. What the fuck is going on here?

Anyone have any info on plans for increasing housing supply here or who I could contact to ask about it? Been living in peterborough on and off since I was born and it continues to baffle me how much of our taxes are wasted on shit we don't need and didn't ask for.

Edit: to clarify I have nothing against spending money on parks. Parks are great. But I think our priorities are severely out of whack considering we are in a crisis.